So! I've here in Rio for just over a month now and I think this is what they call 'living the high life'!
Everything here at the moment seems to be revolving around Carnaval which is next weekend! For the last 5 weeks we've been working 3 days a week in the Samba City helping to make the costumes. I'm working for a samba school called Mangueira, apparently one of the most famous (although worryingly we seem to be quite a bit behind schedule!), whose colours are pink and green (not actually as bad as it sounds) and the theme this year is 'Our People' - exploring the roots of Brazilian people. The costumes are INCREDIBLE!! - so colourful, very flamboyant and elaborate and full of such intricate detail, I can imagine they'd be alot of fun to design! We're given various jobs, some more interesting than others, mostly involving a lot of hot-glue-gunning and cutting out. Also, pretty much everything is edged with sequins, beads, lace or quite often all 3 and everything is done by hand..so it takes a while! After working there for a few days it really did make us appreciate the amount of time and effort that goes into every single part of every single costume - especially when we've been told the costumes are made to last for just 90 minutes, the amount of time they have to parade down the sambodrome!! Although the work can sometimes be a little bit tedious, everyone who works there is a lot of fun - very happy to try and talk to you despite the language barrier, there is always someone singing and dancing around, lots of gay men, and the best days are when they bring in cake!!!
Then we come to the floats! My first impressions: WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW! Imagine bigger than big and more impressive than impressive!! There are 8 main floats, which fill the space of the entire ground floor of the warehouse, and built up, some so high they are level with the 3rd floor! It's very hard to describe but the skeletons are made mostly out of metal frames and then they 'fill it out' with thin wood. There are then huge sculptures (some of which move!) that are fixed to the floats, which are actually made mostly out of polystyrene, but you would never be able to tell!! Everything is painted and decorated in just as much detail as the costumes, and even the float that we thought was finished 5 weeks ago is still having bits and pieces added to it! We've taken lots of photos of all the floats and costumes at various stages but we've been told we're not allowed to put them up on the internet until after carnival....so you'll just have to wait!!
There are 12 'special schools' altogether which parade over the Sunday and Monday; each school has about 4000-5000 participants (12 x 5000 = 60,000) and each school has 8 floats each (12 x 8 = 96) - i guess we'll have to see it to believe it!! We were also told some very exciting news the day after we arrived: that we get to PARADE IN THE CARNIVAL!!! Took a while to get over the excitement! We'll be parading on the Saturday with a school in group B called 'Imperio de Tijuca'. Due to various reasons we've actually only had one rehearsal but that was so much fun - everyone had to wear green and white and we were organised (i use this term very loosely) into horizontal lines of 8 (within seconds of being counted and told exactly where to stand it was chaos again with everyone just dancing around!). We danced our way all the way down the sambodrome with the song being played over and over again. The atmosphere was fantastic and all the stands were packed even though this was only a rehearsal!! Since then, we've been desparately trying to learn how to samba (properly), trying to learn the words to the song and trying to think of a way of making our costumes look flattering - we've seen a sketch of them...a tiny bit 'clown/jester-like'?! Not quite the 'bra-thong-and-very-little-else' combo that some people had in mind!! I'm sure you'll all see a photo at some point!
We've been making the most of our days off, spending a bit of time at the beach (we've decided we definately prefer Ipanema to Copacabana), been a couple of times to an amazing hippie market in Ipanema which is huge, and last week we went up to see the big man himself - Christ the Redeemer! The views were lovely, all the way across the city and the statue itself - humongous!! Since being here I have also been to my first and second ever football matches!! The second was a derby between Botafogo and Flamengo held in the Maracana! Our co-ordinator lives and breathes Botafogo so we didn't have a choice as to who we supported! The stadium was very impressive (i'm keeping it quiet here that I'd never actually heard of it before I arrived here) and the atmosphere at both matches was amazing - very very passionate fans who like to jump up and down, wave flags and sing songs for the entire match! Because of this i didn't actually see a couple of the goals - I knew there was a reason I preferred Match of the Day!!Along with the football matches, we've been able to do a few other things that we probably wouldn't have done had we not been doing the project. We have been up to the favelas twice, the first time we went with some of the volunteers who are doing a community up there, so we spent the day painting houses (/getting covered in paint) to try and brighten it up a bit - it is obviously a completely different lifestyle up there compared to most of the other places we've been to in Rio. Everyone was very friendly though and all seemed really pleased and grateful for the work we were doing! We have also been to a couple of Capoeira 'sessions' - it's a form of non-contact marshal arts - I think it's like a cross between karate and gymnastics but it was really good fun, and made us feel good for doing some exercise!!! Everyone there made us feel really welcomed, let us 'join the circle' and asked when we'll next be going! Since my legs ached for about a week afterwards, I don't think I could do the 4 nights a week training like most of them!
A group of 5 of us went on 'a holiday' a couple of weekends ago (working 3 days a week, 10-4 isn't easy you know!). We went to an island called Ilha Grande, which was a 2 and a half hour (fairly scary) bus journey and a 1 and a half hour boat ride away from Rio. We went very early on the Friday morning and came back late Sunday but it really did feel like a proper little holiday - everything was even more laid back than Rio, the sun shone the whole time for us and the island itself was beautiful! On the Saturday we did a whole day boat trip to Lagoa Azul (Blue Lagoon), stopping off at a couple of other beaches along the way - it was a matter of jumping off the boat, swimming/snorkelling/floating in the very warm, very clear and very blue sea at each of the stops and then hopping back on the boat and sunbathing whilst eating fresh fruit that they brought round until the next stop! It was a tough day to say the least!!
What else?! The volunteer guest house is lovely, the only downside being that it is at the top of a rather large, steep hill - i hope we're be getting fitter! The best thing about the hill though is that there is a very small, 'cute' local bar at the bottom of it - makes a good meeting point and sells good cheap beer - 600ml bottle is about a £1!! There are about 15 volunteers staying at our house and there's some more up the road, everyone is really nice and we all get along well!After hearing all about the snow in England (I've got to admit that I was a tiny bit jealous!), I feel I should add that most days here it's anywhere between 30-37°C!! We have had a couple of big storms followed by a couple of cooler days where it's rained in the evening but generally it's been hot hot hot!!
Well, I think that is pretty much everything to report for now! We have about 3 more weeks in Brazil - straight after Carnival we are taking on a 22 hour bus journey over to the Iguacu Falls, staying on both the Argentinian side and the Brazilian, and then making our way back over to Rio via Sao Paulo and Paraty before flying out to New Zealand on the 16th of March!! And then let the journey continue!
I'm sorry this has been a long time coming and has ended up quite lengthy - I do plan to write shorter ones, more often from here on in! Hope everyone is well, wherever you are and whatever you are doing! Keep me updated on any exciting news!
Tchau for now XXXXX.
